Game of the Dead
by DriedMango
Summary: Sherlock and Moriarty, set after the end of series 3. Sherlock cannot face Moriarty alone this time, he needs people he can trust, he needs his friends. Moriarty is hunting down Mary's secrets and Sherlock needs to keep her safe. Hope you like it! Rated T for violence.


The stench of the corpse in the corner was horrible; it filled the small concrete room with the overwhelming smell of death. The man with straw-like hair sat in the centre of the room. Unconscious. The room had solid, thick walls with one small window, no more than 1ft wide at the top of the wall that the man was facing. Behind him was a door, metal, also thick. The window let in a feeble grey light which was the only source of brightness apart from the dirty lamp hanging above the prisoner's head. The light was turned off and hung perfectly still as if it was waiting for someone.

The man in the chair stirred. His face was still hidden by his hair which was thick and dark. His clothes were fairly clean apart from the blood stains that were still slightly damp on his shirt, just below his chest. The shirt that was previously purple was now stained a brown/red colour. He wore jeans that were clearly well worn. They were scuffed at the ankle with the shape of the legs moulded almost perfectly to his form.

His head shifted and he groaned in pain followed by a sharp intake of breath. His eyes opened and blinked as if being met by a bright light. His vision was at first blurry but was adjusted after a few seconds to the gloom surrounding him. As he came to his senses, he felt a throbbing pain in his head, joined quickly by the stabbing pain in his side; he instinctively tried to clutch his stomach but was prevented by the ropes tightened at his wrists, his ankles and across his chest. He came to the conclusion of what had happened the night before; he had been drugged, stabbed and beaten. These would explain the headache verging on migraine and the piercing wound in his side. He could feel the blood but due to the murk in the room was unable to see the extent of the damage. Judging by the pain it was fairly considerable.

He lifted his head heavily and looked slowly around the room, taking in every detail: From the smallest scratches on the walls, more so by the door, all the way to the body in the corner. The figure was facing away from him so the face could not be seen, that didn't stop him from identifying the female, all except the name. She had been a personal assistant. She was a larger woman with light coloured hair, most probably in her mid-thirties. She used to bite her nails indicating a stressful job and her hand looked strained, the muscles which were once alive, tired. This obviously indicated a desk job, working with computers. Her nails looked professionally done but old; she had a high placed job but not so high placed that she could afford to get her nails done regularly. Her clothes, although ripped most probably due to struggle, were smart, a skirt suit with small heels. Even though the face could not be seen, the man in the chair judged that it would have makeup. Although by now the makeup would be smudged and not so evident, there would probably still be dark shadows around her eyes where her eyeliner had blended to match the bruises that would have been found on her face. With a number of other deductions, the man decided within seconds of laying his eyes on the body that she was a personal assistant or secretary…

He opted wisely to breathing through his mouth in order to prevent the stench from damaging his sense of smell. The feel of death was still overwhelming, it caught at the back of his throat and he coughed roughly, this sent pain shooting through his body from the wound in his side and he closed his eyes hard in order to endure it.

The filthy hanging lamp above his head whirred on, creating a hazy orange light in the room. The raggedy haired man in the chair turned his head to see behind him, the constriction on his chest prevented him from seeing past the wall on his left side but he could sense that there was someone else in here with him, apart from the dead secretary. The click of a door closing confirmed his assumptions and he waited for the capturer to speak, already knowing exactly who it was.

"Did you miss me?" the mocking voice echoed through the room, originating from behind the man. "Long time no see"

The man in the chair smiled, "Hello, Jim." His voice was rough and dehydrated. "How have you been?" he asked, playing along with the game, being polite.

"Oh, y'know, haven't been up to much, the usual. I do love it when you act so civil though" his snake like eyes looked the man in front of him up and down. He stepped forward and pushed his hands through the seated man's hair. "Oh Sherlock," he leaned in close to his ear, "no need to be so nervous, I can feel the hair on your neck standing on end, almost as if you have seen a ghost." Moriarty pushed Sherlock's head forward, away from him and wiped his hands forcibly down his smart, black suit.

"Moriarty, what do you want?" demanded Sherlock.

"What happened to polite?!" he whimpered, the whimper turned into a laugh, "Oh I've missed you Sherly…" he shook his head with a smile on his face. "Now, let's get down to business shall we?" he said, forcefully. The door opened again and a clattering of a trolley could be heard in the silence as one was rolled into the room. Sherlock tried to turn to see what it carried but was once again restricted by the ropes that held him to the chair. He thought suddenly at the horror that he could possibly end up like the poor girl in the corner.

"What are you going to do to me?" he asked, cautiously.

"Oh well, you see, that depends on if you behave or not… I saw you eyeing up that lady just over there and well," he laughs, except the laugh was more of a cackle… "She didn't behave, oh no… it was ever such a shame, she was such a nice girl." His Irish accent was strong as he pronounced each sound.

"What do you want from me?" commanded Sherlock. "Where even am I?!" he tried to deduct but considering that he had been brought there unconscious, it was proving rather difficult.

"Hush now, Sherlock, I just want a little bit of information from you is all…" he asked playfully. Moriarty walked round the chair to face the dark haired man before him. This was the first time that Sherlock had seen his old enemy in person in four years. "Now, tell me about Mary Morstan."

"I barely know her, she married John and she bakes her own bread." He said, he attempted to sound confident but came off as quite nervous.

"Oh you know much more than that, even I know more than that… I don't want to get messy now" Moriarty toyed with a knife that he had pulled from the trolley. "I know what you're thinking, I don't usually get my hands dirty, but, my dear, people change." He stared into Sherlock's eyes menacingly, as if challenging him. He toyed with the knife again after holding eye contact for a few seconds. "People stopped believing in me, Sherlock…" he drew out Sherlock's name, elongating it so that it filled his mouth and burnt Sherlock's ears with his accent. "You're not the only one who had fans, of course my fans are slightly different to yours… some of the unlucky few thought I was dead!" he scoffed at the thought. "Me?! Dying?! Of come on, be original… that's what everyone else thinks, I expected more of them. So naturally, they had to go…" Sherlock needed to stall, he had already lost a lot of blood and he calculated that too much more could kill him.

"You were dead, we were both _dead_" said Sherlock, he watched the man in front of him, the man with the knife that was being played with so delicately in front of his face.

"Well of course, but they should have known better… this is me we are talking about… not some unknown secretary, people love me Sherlock, they _worship_ me."

"If they worship you why did they die?" asked Sherlock, forcefully.

"I already said DUFUS!" his voice raised to almost a scream by the end of the sentence and Sherlock was suddenly reminded of the rooftop, almost the same sentence. Moriarty calmed down and continued speaking with his arrogant drawl. "I was like a myth to them, a legend, spoken of only in fairy tales… so as you can see, I'm running low on men at the moment, and women of course, I don't want to be sexist now do I? Anyway, after all that business with the children's story telling when I broke apart your world, brick by brick, a lot of them didn't think I ever even existed, they continued with their boring little lives and forgot all about me. So I paid them a visit. Oh weren't they surprised! So being low on staff as it were, it's difficult to find someone willing to torture, and besides, Sherly, you're a special case… now, tell me all about your new friend Mary" Moriarty moved quickly like a snake, before Sherlock could even realise what was happening, Jim had thrust the knife into the wound by his ribs.

He gasped and caught his breath, his head up, straining his neck for air that was so limited in such a small room. The dead body's scent in the corner caught in his throat again and he tried to cough, this caused him to lurch forward slightly, closer to Moriarty's face and pushing the knife deeper into his side.

"Oh personal space Sherlock, I know you've missed me but no need to be so forward, dear me you are in a state aren't you" he pulled the knife out and Sherlock clenched his fists, writhed within his bonds in an attempt to block the newly opened wound's blood from seeping out. Moriarty wiped the knife on a cloth from the trolley and tutted. "I expected you to be more resilient Sherlock." He shook his head and leaned in close so the men were eye level.

The knife was brought up to Sherlock's face and pushed into his cheek, not cutting it but applying pressure. Sherlock steadied his breath and slowly moved his face up to meet the Irishman's stare. He moved slowly so as not to jerk the knife that was poised so elegantly at his cheek. "Tell me about Mary and nobody gets hurt here. You know Sherlock; you know she's a liar. I'm sure that you saw that the moment you met. I remember how you can read people as if they were books. Oh how I have missed you." He flicked his wrist and sliced the detective's cheek, a clean cut that quickly began to bleed. Sherlock flinched away from the other man and from the knife.

"What do you want to know?" he swallowed, hard, and hung his head. Jim liked the way that he looked so small, so defeated.

"I almost feel sorry for you…" he laughed. "Who is she Sherlock? What did she do? You've read her like a book and you should know… I have ways of making people talk, Sherlock." He moved swiftly to behind the constrained detective and a clattering was heard as he moved things around on the trolley. "Aha!" he had found what he was searching for. The tension hung in the air heavily as he lifted the unseen implement from the tray or tools. Silence accompanied the tension just as strongly but was shattered with a sudden noise. A merciful distraction.

_"Ah, ha, ha, ha,_

_Stayin' alive._

_Stayin' alive."_

The ringtone exploded from the pocket of the man in the suit. He sighed. "So rude, I told them not to call me at work…" he lifted the phone that continued to blast the music and answered it.

"What do you want?" he shouted down the phone, Sherlock almost jumped out of his seat.

"Say that again my dear…" he had slowed down this sentence and drawled out the final word before freezing, waiting for the answer on the other side of the phone. After an agonizing wait that for Sherlock, seemed like forever as he felt the warmth of his blood running down the side of his face, Moriarty sighed once more. Judging by the click of the phone he had hung up.

"People are not like you and I Sherlock, they make mistakes, constantly make mistakes, I would kill every one of them if I could, wait, I can!" he laughed again. "I'm so sorry to cut out little meeting short but we both seem to be a little tied up here," he smirked as he leaned close to Sherlock's face again. "You are not as boring as I thought you were, maybe we are the same, you and I, me and you, pretending to die… maybe this is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an unmovable object. I have always wondered about that… but I must dash, ive got things to do and people to see, I'm sure you understand, we are both such busy, busy people." He pulled away from Sherlock and picked up a jacket from the bottom shelf of the trolley, as he opened the door, he turned back to the prisoner, "Sorry to leave you in such bad company," he referred to the girl in the corner "I know she is such a drag but oh well! Try not to die on me while I'm away dear, I would hate that to happen again…" the door clicked shut and the lock was turned into place.

Sherlock met the silence that greeted him and let the pain overtake his body, the blood from his ribs had covered his shirt changing its colour completely and he slumped his head forward, engulfed in dizziness and the smell of corpse.

**So guys, that is chapter 1... i honestly dont know if i am doing any more chapters because i just felt a spur to write today and this is what happened... if i get a tonne of good feedback i might write another chapter or something if i have time. thank you for reading and i would appreciate comments and such. i thought quite a bit of it might have been a bit ooc? sorry about that, really, im not great at this... feel free to favourite if you think this is any good, thank you! 33 hopefully see you soon?**


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